In a letter to State Senator Ceci Maher, the Weston Police Commission urged support for Senate Bill 431, an act that would allow police departments to charge a fee when disclosure of video from police body and dash cameras requires redaction.

“We appreciate the bipartisan approval of the bill within the GAE committee,” wrote the commissioners. “We trust that it will find the same reception when it heads to the Senate for consideration.”

GAE is the Government Administration and Elections Committee, which favorably reported the bill to the full Senate unanimously.

Police camera recordings may include a variety of scenes where disclosure, under state or federal law, would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy unless portions are obscured by techniques such as blurring or pixelization, painstaking processes that can take hours.

The bill specifies that a fee cannot be charged for the first two hours of such work. It also stipulates that a fee cannot be charged if the recording depicts a police officer involved in a shooting or motor vehicle accident, is giving a formal statement about the use of force, is the subject of an allegation of misconduct, or is the subject of a disciplinary investigation.